it's hard for us to understand there was nobody like us. whatever they did it was important. >> let's take a quick snapshot of the modern republican. a basic fact about what america liked like. the census maker was thomas jefferson. here are some of the facts they gathered about the new united states. the 13 former colonies had a population of under 4 million. and 577 of those were blacks and 19% and 9% were free. the per-capita-income was $437. the years of war had reduced the per-capita-income. if you translated to 2013 dollars, $11, 500. the largest cities were new york, philadelphia, and boston. what can we learn about them? >> first of all, point out that two of the thirteen states were not yet members of the union. the fact that north carolina and rhode island held back when the rest of the union adopted the constitution. america was overwhelmingly a rural, rustic farm-based society. it ended at the appalachian mountains. there were only in 1800 there were three roads that crossed. the united states was a nation -- it was in fact thre